Valley Presbyterian Hospital doc awarded 2013 Achievement Award in Diabetic Limb Salvage

Oct 19 2013

George Andros, MD, Founder and Medical Director of the Amputation Prevention Center at Valley Presbyterian Hospital, was honored with the MedStar Georgetown 2013 Distinguished Achievement Award in Diabetic Limb Salvage.

Dr. Andros, a board-certified vascular surgeon, is a world-renowned expert on diabetic limb salvage and lower extremity revascularization. He received the lifetime achievement award at the seventh annual Diabetic Limb Salvage Conference, held October 10-12 in Washington, D.C.

"I am deeply honored to receive the Distinguished Achievement Award in Diabetic Limb Salvage," Dr. Andros said. "I consider myself lucky to be able to do what I do and to collaborate with a talented team of medical professionals. Together, we save limbs and improve lives — it doesn't get more rewarding than that."

For more than 40 years, Dr. Andros has been at the forefront of techniques for lower extremity revascularization, saving thousands of patients from the disability of amputation. He also has been a champion for a team approach to care.

At an age when many are ready to retire, Dr. Andros, founding partner of Los Angeles Vascular Specialists, established the state-of-the-art Amputation Prevention Center at Valley Presbyterian Hospital. The center is among only a handful of facilities nationwide — and is the only facility in Southern California — that brings together a multidisciplinary team of medical specialists to focus entirely on preserving limbs.

For the past 14 years, Dr. Andros has been co-chair of DFCon Global Diabetic Foot Conference, an international conference held in Los Angeles. The conference gathers vascular surgeons and podiatrists in a shared effort to save limbs, improve the outcome of limb ischemia, and ultimately, provide excellent patient care.

Dr. Andros is the editor of Vascular Specialist, the newspaper of the Society for Vascular Surgery, and serves as a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Vascular Surgery and the Journal of Endovascular Therapy. Additionally, he has served as president of the Southern California Vascular Surgical Society and the Western Vascular Society, and was a Distinguished Fellow of the Society for Vascular Surgery. Dr. Andros also has authored a book on vascular diagnosis, published more than 55 peer-reviewed articles in professional journals, and has written more than 35 book chapters.

"George Andros has lived by the maxim, 'It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit,' and he has proved that in his life by achieving more in his field than anyone else I know by making many of the most significant contributions in distal bypass techniques that have stood the test of time," said DLS Conference Co-Chair Dr. Christopher E. Attinger, division chief of the Center for Wound Healing and Hyperbaric Medicine and professor at Georgetown University Hospital.

Dr. Andros completed his medical education at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, and interned at the Los Angeles County General Hospital. He completed a surgical residency and vascular training at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where he found a deep interest in lower extremity revascularization.

Dr. Andros lives in Los Angeles with Marie, his wife of 52 years. He is the father of Victoria Tomkinson and Alexandra Conroy, and is the proud grandfather to four children.